Politics and prejudice in the US

Politics and prejudice in the US

Friday 8 June 2012 15.59 EDT
First published on Friday 8 June 2012 15.59 EDT

Martin Kettle (Comment, 31 May) is absolutely correct in stating that Mitt Romney's religion is a key issue. You bet it is indeed. But he omits an important issue: the Mormon church's deeply intolerant, vitriolic attitude towards lesbian and gay people.

Illustration by Gillian Blease

This church orchestrated and funded the campaign around proposition 8 in California which annulled existing marriages between lesbian and gay couples and prevented future marriages. Even today equal marriage in California awaits a supreme court decision to uphold a subsequent ruling by the state of California that proposition 8 was unconstitutional.

Anyone within the Mormon church found, or suspected, of being lesbian or gay will be, often forcibly, "re-educated". Those who come out are no longer Mormons and are excluded from their community and family. Suicide rates among young lesbian and gay Mormons are higher than average.

Anyone who doubts this church's hatred of those of us who are lesbian and gay could consider watching the documentary The Mormon Proposition, which details its role regarding California and proposition 8. A vote for Romney is a vote for prejudice and inequality.Geoff HardyRainbow Film Festival, Shrewsbury

• Martin Kettle suggests that the Mormon belief that "America is divinely blessed and the US divinely inspired" may be to Romney's disadvantage. I'm not so sure. Non-Mormon rightwing commentators on Fox News frequently imply that Obama is not a true American because he does not believe in American exceptionalism. In such circles, Romney's views may be considered a plus.Geoffrey GammonLondon

Steele's expectations for Obama were as high as those of the vast majority of the liberal-minded Americans who elected him. Of course, Obama's cultural, academic and political background also forced your columnist to predict: "Obama's preference for diplomacy can help forge new, individual relationships with Iran, Iraq and Aghanistan."

Alas, how soon Steele and all the well-wishers of Obama have been proved wrong. The moment he appointed such hawks as Clinton, Gates and Panetta to his cabinet, I realised that Obama would be another George W Bush. Today he is conducting the war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the same commitment and fervour with which Lyndon Johnson conducted the Vietnam war. Although the UN mandate to wage war on terror doesn't extend beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama has extended it to three other countries – Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia– with impunity. I wonder why the UN security council has not yet censured the US not only for extending the war on terror illegally to other countries but also for using a new, remotely controlled weapon of war of doubtful international legality – the drone.M Riaz HasanPinner, Middlesex

• I'm not sure Cornel West would take kindly to being described by Pankaj Mishra as "Obama's most prominent black intellectual supporter" (Comment, 5 June). Fleetingly a supporter, yes, but since 2009 Prof West has been a persistent Obama critic, saying in an April 2011 interview that the president is "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it". West may indeed be appalled that Obama "has become George W Bush on steroids". It must be doubtful, however, that he's in the least bit surprised.Bruce Ross-SmithOxford